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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1862.PDF
430 Looking-in on the Industry ... Siddeley BS.53, and whose factory area is in process of beingdoubled in size. How much the Dowty Group are contributing to current pro-jects in the British aircraft industry is clear from some of the products they are exhibiting at the Farnborough show: gearboxfor the Vanguard, ram air turbine for the VC10, main under- carriage legs for the Argosy and the Avro 748, fuel system for theD.H. Gyron Junior. A remarkable demonstration has been pre- pared (of which I had the privilege of a preview at Cheltenham)showing the properties of the Dowty Moog valve, by transmitting a tape recording through it—audible evidence of how power canbe transmitted from electrical circuits to hydraulic controls, as on missiles or high-speed aircraft, where precise control is requiredat high power. Dowty have long been famous for their undercarriages: theirearliest successes were with the Gloster Gauntlet and Bristol Bulldog. At Arle Court is the largest undercarriage test rig inBritain, built for the undercarriage of the Bristol Brabazon: it is now used for testing the eight-wheel bogies of the Avro Vulcan,which are designed and built by Dowty. • Integrations are in fashion now, and Dowty were well to thefore in linking Rotol and British Messier to their future fortunes: this is a coupling of design skill to productive capacity, mixedwith a dash of diversification (the Dowty Group's products range from propellers and servo units to nucleonics and the constructionof lightweight power boats, pit-props, turbine-powered speedboats and railway buffers). FLIGHT, 9 September I960 I found a similar sort of diversification when I went wSir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Ltd, though th'-ir See ducts are mostly related to aircraft and missiles. Fl"irjj>Coventry Airport at Baginton, you can see the companr^ni1^0 premises in the south-east corner of the airfield. A few mile • i^to the north, is Whitley, AWA's former location. Here the hrn ' Ensign airliner and the Whitley bombers were produced, an-' n°USSeaslug missiles are being made (designed in co-operation w?th GEC and Sperry): one gets a perspective of aeronautical historvthere, especially as one of the oldest wind tunnels in Britai (built in 1926) stands cheek-by-jowl with an intermittent and ahigh-speed tunnel. As with many other manufacturers, AWA's aircraft have outgrown their airfield: test flying used to be done at Baginton" but a few years ago the company decided to transfer theirtest-flying activities to Bitteswell, a three-runway airfield to the east of the A5 road, and acquired it from the Air Ministry Hereall flight-testing is done on the Argosies, which are assembled in the Bitteswell hangars after being transported by road fromBaginton. I was able to see the development prototype of the AW.660 military Argosy, with its rear-loading doors (variouslydescribed as "beaver tail" or "crocodile jaw") and side exits for parachute troops. AWA are proud of the Argosy, and have everyreason to be so. They also point with justifiable pride to their engineering skilland capacity at Baginton, where they build not only for them- selves but for other companies in the Hawker Siddeley Group andoutside it: I saw parts of the Vulcan and the Avro 748, Javelin drop-tanks and equipment for the UK Atomic Energy Authority.AWA are especially proud of their workmanship in the medium engineering field, particularly as applied to nuclear power, forexample the precisely machined finned fuel cans which I saw at Baginton. What might be described as an eerie sight at AWA is that of anArgosy being tank-tested to destruction. You can climb up and look down on this aircraft immersed in its tank; looking down intothe water, you almost expect to see fishes or frogmen swimming around. As a counterpoint to this silent submersion, the wingscreak pitifully as they are raised and lowered to find the ultimate stress, while the loads applied are measured and calculated. Hereis the silent side of aircraft industry research, those gentle mathe- matics whose sums make for passenger safety. Similar searchingtests, in an environmental chamber, are carried out on the Seaslug missiles produced by Armstrong Whitworth, to prove theirefficiency to fly accurately to heights of 70,000ft. * * * From Coventry to Bristol is a logical step, for the famous enginefirms which originated at these cities are now linked as Bristol Siddeley: and at Patchway, the factory on the north-east side ofFilton airfield, I saw production work on engines which are powering Britain's current and future aircraft, from the casting ofstator blades out of Nimonic alloys to the finished powerplant being ground-run and packed for despatch. I found the process by which the blades are made quite fascinat-ing to watch: first, an impression in green wax, much as a dentist might make for false teeth; then a forme in cement (looking quitesurrealist, almost like shapes in Henry Moore's studio), from which the wax is melted away; then the foundry, where moltenalloy is poured into the required shape, and where the foundrymen who work in such tremendous temperatures are given an hour offto cool down after their shift. There is much visual excitement, too, in watching the test-runof a Thor ramjet with its efflux being drawn off, the condensation
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